


Pale Bruise

by Missy



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Advice, Complicated Family Ties, Family, Force Ghost Padmé Amidala, Gen, Ghosts, Trick or Treat: Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:02:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27242389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: Leia goes to Naboo to gather strength in the wake of Vader's fall.  It isn't the first time she's encountered Padmé, but it's the first time her biological mother has ever offered her advice..
Relationships: Padmé Amidala & Leia Organa
Comments: 12
Kudos: 30
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	Pale Bruise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ambiguously](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambiguously/gifts).



Naboo is quiet this time of year – orchid-shaded, with soft red leaves raining down on Leia’s white-caped shoulders.

She really needs the peace and quiet. With Darth Vader vanquished, Leia needs every ounce of strength she can muster to make the right political moves to solidify the new alliance. She’s hungry to prove her mettle again, but an exhausted leader helps no one. So here she sits, on her biological mother’s home planet, trying to listen to her own heartbeat and calm the hell down.

It’s not in her nature. She finds herself out in the garden trying to weed a bush when she hears a soft laugh and sees the hem of a long red skirt brush by out of the corner of her eyes.

“Now’s not the time…” she doesn’t know whether to call Padmé mother. In her heart, the Organas will always be her parents. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t room there for other people.

She looks up and there the girl stands – younger than Leia herself is. 

Her mother. 

She’s seen the holographic records, of course – her speech before the senate (so _young_ , Leia had thought at the time, silently absorbing it all while Luke eagerly leaned forward in his chair, thirsty to know about his heritage, wanting to _understand._ ). But she’s never looked more alive, more vivid, than she does in the garden, with her curly brown hair falling down her shoulders and her pale violet garment framing her shoulders.

Leia had thought she was losing her mind the first time Padme had come to her. She’d communicated with Luke hysterically, the first time. Luke’s own response had been a shrug. “Vader hasn’t been very quiet, either,” he says, leaving it at that. She understands somehow – because of their bond, or because of how it is.

“Stay true to your path,” Padmé says. And it’s apparently all she needed to say, because before Leia can stand to speak to her, she gone again.

Leia hears her laugh as she dusts her palms against her knees. It’s a soft and small sound, carried on the breeze. 

It makes Leia smile. Padmé's free now. She’s home. 

It’s time for Leia to go home, too.


End file.
